One of the good things about being in India for more than a year is that blog posts I started writing last November are suddenly relevant again! So, without further ado, here’s one I prepared earlier…..
A few things happening lately have made me realise what a deep sense of culture Australia lacks. Don’t get me wrong – Australia is (for the most part) a brilliant country and having been in India now for a year and a bit, it is a country I will be extraordinarily glad to return to. Despite the fact that we lack the 8,500 year old culture that India possesses.
But when it comes to national ‘things’ – language, dress, traditions – we are hopeless.
Today was UN Day at Elena’s school which meant all the kids had to dress up in their national costume. Elena went in her party dress with a Canada pin on her lapel. I couldn’t face sending her to school in a football shirt (Newtown Jets) or a hat with corks on it. For UN day they also had to draw a series of pictures representing their national dress, language, festival, food, game and flag. We settled on Elena in the aforementioned party dress, “G’day”, Anzac Day, Vegemite, cricket and the Australian flag. That’s a bit of a pathetic list.
The other incident was Melbourne Cup which was of course, run on Tuesday. The ANZA Club here in Delhi has its major fundraising brunch on Melbourne Cup day so Doug and I thought we’d go along. It was quite a nice morning – arrived at about 8.45 am, watched the race at 9.30 am and then settled in for brunch, champagne, tombolas, a fashion show and raffles.
The reaction of the non-Australians to the actual race was quite hilarious. They had 2 televisions set up so people could watch the race and watch they did. Well, watch we the Australians did. A few non-Australians braved the throng to watch the race. One of our American friends was heard to remark after the race “Is that it?” over and over in a bewildered tone.
And yes, I am afraid that is it.
For the record, at this year’s UN Day, Elena insisted on wearing the same dress she wore last year because “we got it in Australia”. And I forgot to give her the Canadian lapel pin, but she did have some Australian flag tattoos on her arms.
And Melbourne Cup totally rocked. But still confused many, many people.
